Butler picks Brandon Miller to replace Brad Stevens

Jul. 6, 2013
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Brandon Miller, pictured here in 2003 during his time as a member of Butler's men's basketball team, has been named the school's new basketball coach after Brad Stevens took the Boston Celtics job earlier this week. / Indianapolis Star

by Nicole Auerbach, USA TODAY Sports

by Nicole Auerbach, USA TODAY Sports

Three days after Brad Stevens shocked the sports world by leaving Butler to become the new head coach of the Boston Celtics, the search is over for Stevens' replacement.

Current Butler assistant and former Butler player Brandon Miller will be the next head coach of the Bulldogs, the school announced Saturday afternoon.

Fittingly, he was offered the job by his former coach, Barry Collier, who is Butler's athletic director.

"I was thrilled," Miller told USA TODAY Sports by phone Saturday evening. "It was a dream of mine to become a head coach, and to be able to become a head coach and your alma mater. It's Butler University, and with everything going on here with joining the new Big East ... there's excitement."

Not surprisingly, Butler stayed within its family to find Stevens' replacement, and, like its past four coaches, it chose an assistant to take the reins of the program. This will also be Miller's first head coaching job.

At Saturday's news conference, Collier introduced Miller as a basketball coach, a rising star in the profession and, "most of all, a Butler Bulldog." It's been obvious, throughout the entire coaching search, that the priority was to hire a coach who understands the Butler Way and embraces the values of the program.

Miller, 34, certainly understands that, emphasizing during his news conference that the values Butler lives by "will not change." He would know; he's lived them. Miller graduated from the school in 2003 after winning three league championships, reaching the Sweet 16 and scoring more than 1,100 points.

He worked for former Butler coach and current Ohio State coach Thad Matta as a video coordinator and director of basketball operations before returning to Butler as an assistant for the 2007-08 season -- Stevens' first as a head coach. Miller went back to Ohio State for three years, then went to Illinois for one.

Miller returned to Butler in April as an assistant, a fortuitously timed move in hindsight.

"There was no guarantee that Brad Stevens was going to stay the head coach at Butler, but there was nothing in my mind that said he was going to leave," Miller said. "I knew it would have to take something really, really unique and special to leave. To be honest, it didn't even go through my head that he might not be here right now. When I joined, I joined to be an assistant coach.

"I had a great three months doing that."

Miller's first season as a head coach will coincide with Butler's first in the Big East. That, along with the inevitable pressure of replacing a coach who took this program to two national championship games, makes for a challenging first head coaching job.

"My philosophy, coaching and things that I believe in and stand for, a lot of those things are similar to Brad's," Miller said. "A lot of people we talk to in coaching are the same. (Brad and I) have kept in touch throughout the years, and we not only have a professional relationship, but a friendship. We talk ball, we talk Xs and Os.

"With that said, we aren't the same person. We don't coach the exact same way. I'll make tweaks, I'll make adjustments. I believe if you don't do that, that's not coaching. Brad Stevens did a great job being Brad Stevens. My goal is to be the best Brandon Miller I can be."

Nicole Auerbach, a national college basketball reporter for USA TODAY Sports, is on Twitter @NicoleAuerbach.